Forest Gardening in Weird Climates

The climate in my area (Los Angeles) is somewhat odd - dry years are desert-like, average years are Mediterranean, and wet years are almost tropical. What are the best forest garden assemblies for such a situation?

Posts: 3

Location: Perth, Western Australia

posted 6 years ago

Hi Kirk,

This may be a bit late for you, but I've just finished a series of posts on developing a permaculture plant palette for Mediterranean climates:

Hurray! A reply! Thanks for the info. I have just undertaken a project at a school garden, which involves some extra challenges; namely, it receives an enormous amount of sunlight and bakes to a crisp in the summer. Because of that, I have acquired some plants more desert adapted than mediterranean, such as mesquite, which will hopefully provide a light shade in which more delicate plants can grow well. I also hear that mesquite can have a fifty foot taproot, which would bring up a lot of nutrients as well as water.

Posts: 3

Location: Perth, Western Australia

posted 6 years ago

Great idea Kirk,

Julie Firth in Geraldton, Western Australia recommends this approach too. She has found that using, for example, Acacia aneura, a nitrogen fixer of desert provenance has shown much greater success in the slightly less that desert-like Geraldton. I think that this approach will become increasingly important in the face of climate change.

I hope to keep up with your project. Will you be documenting it on your blog? I've subscribed to it now in any case.

I'd like to be able to use mesquite here in WA (Western Australia, not Washington but it has a tendency to rampancy here and is outlawed.